外国语言文化论坛（第115讲）——讲座二: Cultural Conceptualization and Linguistic Experience
讲座地点: 逸夫外文楼B1001
讲座时间：5月19日10:20-11:10
讲座人：Ning Yu（The Pennsylvania State University）
Abstract:In light of the conference theme on concept-based language instruction from sociocultural perspective, I will discuss in this talk the relationship between linguistic patterns and conceptual representations as part of my exploration into the interaction between language, culture, and cognition in general, and between cultural conceptualization and linguistic experience in particular. I start with a discussion of some relevant tenets of Cognitive Linguistics, especially conceptual metaphor theory (CMT; Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff& Johnson, 1980, 1999), and of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian, 2017). I will then present a corpus-based study on two Chinese body-part terms: liăn and miàn ‘face’ and xīn ‘heart,’ which I consider as Chinese “cultural key words” (Wierzbicka, 1992, 1997) filled with extremely rich cultural meanings and values. I will also use English as a reference point for my study in Chinese to show how characteristic linguistic patterns in a language both manifest and reinforce the underlying cultural conceptualizations.
My previous studies on the Chinese cultural conceptualizations of “Social Face” (i.e., the face as dignity, prestige, reputation, etc.) and “Cognitive Heart” (i.e., the heart as the central faculty of cognition, with mental, rational, intellectual, emotional, moral, and dispositional functions) are qualitative in nature (e.g., Yu, 2001, 2009a, 2009b). The present study, however, looks for some quantitative evidence in two linguistic corpora, namely the Chinese CCL corpus at Peking University (the Center for Chinese Linguistic Corpus) and the English COCA corpus at Brigham Young University (the Corpus of Contemporary American English). The quantitative data from the corpora show that linguistic usages involving the “face” and “heart” words indeed form very different linguistic patterns (in terms of both variety and frequency of linguistic expressions) that should result in very differing linguistic experiences in respective languages and cultures. Different strengths of the linguistic patterns in linguistic experience should inevitably exert an impact on the cognitive status of the corresponding conceptual patterns as being either strong or weak in the languages and cultures. That should also be a main reason why the “Social Face” and “Cognitive Heart” concepts are much stronger in Chinese-speaking than English-speaking cultures. While salient cultural conceptualizations in a language can be traced back to their roots in cultural history, each generation of speakers of that language, however, inherits such cultural conceptualizations through their linguistic experience of learning and using the language, in addition to their cultural and bodily experiences. I will conclude my talk by pointing to some implications of my study for language instruction.
主办单位：西安交通大学国际合作与交流处 西安交通大学外国语学院

讲座人介绍

於宁现任美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学应用语言学系和亚洲研究系教授，主要从事认知语言学和文化语言学研究，特别是认知语义学和概念隐喻理论的研究；探讨语言、文化和认知之间的关系，以及文化经验、身体经验在人类语言和思维中的重要作用；从跨语言、跨文化的视角探索人类认知的共同性和语言文化的多样性。兼任几家国际学术刊物和系列丛书的编辑和编委。其代表作包括：专著《当代隐喻理论的汉语视角》(The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: A Perspective from Chinese, John Benjamins, 1998),专著《汉语“心”概念的认知视角：文化、身体和语言》(The Chinese HEART from a Cognitive Perspective: Culture, Body, and Language, Mouton de Gruyter, 2009),个人论文集《从身体、文化到语义：认知语义学汉语研究论文集》(From Body to Meaning in Culture: Papers on Cognitive Semantic Studies of Chinese, John Benjamins, 2009);还参与编辑两部论文集，并在《隐喻与象征》(Metaphor and Symbol),《认知语言学》(Cognitive Linguistics),《语用学杂志》(Journal of Pragmatics)等国际学术刊物及论文集发表论文。